Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


$50 For-Credit MOOC Goes Bust — for Now

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 06/20/13

A school-vendor partnership intended to test a new twist on the MOOC went belly-up a day after it was announced. On June 18, Tiffin University, a 7,000-student institution in Tiffin, OH, and Altius Education, which describes itself as "part university, part technology company," said it would be teaming up to deliver "Foundations of Success," a $50 credit-bearing course starting July 1. A day later, the two organizations announced that the deal was off "due to concerns over accreditation."

Tiffin administrators declined to provide further information.

Tiffin's programs are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC/NCA).

The course is already offered through Ivy Bridge College, Tiffin's associate program that allows students to attend in person or online and transfer their earned credits to four-year schools with transfer agreements. However, the standard tuition per credit at Tiffin, $690, is considerably more than the massive open online courses fee was set at.

"We apologize to those who were interested in the course and for any inconvenience our delay of this offering has caused," said Altius CEO, Paul Freedman. He added that the partnership would "continue to work through the challenges."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Minimalist binary data fragmentation

    Fragmented Data Is Quietly Undermining Student Success and Cybersecurity Hygiene

    Siloed tools, teams, budgets, and resources spread across departments and campuses generate massive amounts of data. However, fragmentation creates unnecessary exposure to security threats and inadvertently reduces student support because no one can see the whole picture.

  • digital brain with network connections

    Microsoft Moving to Internally Developed AI Models in Office Apps

    Microsoft is reportedly using its own in-house artificial intelligence models to handle some workloads in Excel and Outlook, offering new evidence that the company is moving its AI strategy beyond model development and into large-scale cost reduction.

  • AI user wearing orange safety vest

    California Governor Proposes Independent Watchdogs Within AI Safety System

    California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing a new model of artificial intelligence regulation that would give independent organizations a formal role in evaluating the safety claims made by leading AI companies.

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Launches Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.